The Conservative government is launching a $1.3-billion free market in medical marijuana on Tuesday, eventually providing an expected 450,000 Canadians with quality weed.

Health Canada is phasing out an older system on Monday that mostly relied on small-scale, homegrown medical marijuana of varying quality, often diverted illegally to the black market.

In its place, large indoor marijuana farms certified by the RCMP and health inspectors will produce, package and distribute a range of standardized weed, all of it sold for whatever price the market will bear. The first sales are expected in the next few weeks, delivered directly by secure courier.

"We're fairly confident that we'll have a healthy commercial industry in time," Sophie Galarneau, a senior official with the department, said in an interview.

Health Canada is placing no limits on the number of these new capital-intensive facilities, which will have mandatory vaults and security systems. Private-dwelling production will be banned. Imports from places such as the Netherlands will be allowed.

Already 156 firms have applied for lucrative producer and distributor status since June, with the first two receiving licences just last week.

'Enormous' potential profit

The old system fostered only a cottage industry, with 4,200 growers licensed to produce for a maximum of two patients each. The Mounties have complained repeatedly these grow-ops were often a front for criminal organizations.

The next six months are a transition period, as Health Canada phases out the old system by March 31, while encouraging medical marijuana users to register under the replacement regime and to start buying from the new factory-farms.

There are currently 37,400 medical marijuana users recognized by the department, but officials project that number will swell more than 10-fold, to as many as 450,000 people, by 2024.

The profit potential is enormous. A gram of dried marijuana bud on the street sells for about $10 and Health Canada projects the legal stuff will average about $7.60 next year, as producers set prices without interference from government.

Chuck Rifici of Tweed Inc. has applied for a licence to produce medical weed in an abandoned Hershey chocolate factory in hard-scrabble Smiths Falls, Ont.

Rifici, who is also a senior adviser to Trudeau, was cited in a Conservative cabinet minister's news release Friday that said the Liberals plan to "push pot," with no reference to Health Canada's own encouragement of marijuana entrepreneurs.

Rifici says he's trying to help a struggling community by providing jobs while giving suffering patients a quality product.

"There's a real need," he said in an interview. "You see what this medicine does to them."

Revenue to hit $1.3 billion

Tweed Inc. proposes to produce at least 20 strains to start, and will reserve 10 per cent of production for compassionate, low-cost prescriptions for impoverished patients, he says.

Patients often use several grams a day to alleviate a wide range of symptoms, including cancer-related pain and nausea. They'll no longer be allowed to grow it for themselves under the new rules.

Revenues for the burgeoning new industry are expected to hit $1.3 billion a year by 2024, according to federal projections. And operators would be favourably positioned were marijuana ever legalized for recreational use, as it has been in two American states.

Eric Nash of Island Harvest in Duncan, B.C., has applied for one of the new licences, banking on his experience as a licensed grower since 2002 in the current system.

"The opportunity in the industry is significant," he said in an interview.

"We'll see a lot of moving and shaking within the industry, with companies positioning. And I think we'll see some mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances formed."

"It'll definitely yield benefits to the consumers and certainly for the economy and society in general."

Competition to keep prices in check

Veterans Affairs Canada currently pays for medical marijuana for some patients, even though the product lacks official drug status. Some provinces are also being pressed to cover costs, as many users are too sick to work and rely on welfare.

Health Canada currently sells medical marijuana, produced on contract by Prairie Plant Systems, for $5 a gram, and acknowledges the new system will be more expensive for patients.

But Galarneau says competition will help keep prices in check.

"We expect that over time, prices will be driven down by the free market," she said. "The lower price range will likely be around $3 a gram. ... It's hard to predict."

Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems, and its subsidiary CanniMed Ltd., were granted the first two licences under the system and are already advertising their new products on the web.

Prospective patients, including those under the current system, must get a medical professional to prescribe medical marijuana using a government-approved form.

Health Canada only reluctantly established its medical marijuana program, driven by court decisions from 2001 forward that supported the rights of suffering patients, even as medical science has been slow to verify efficacy.

That sounds accurate enough and while we're discussing this matter lets just point out we still don't need a prescription to destroy our lungs with smoke and/or ruin our livers with alcohol abuse, gambling with the life of innocent pedestrians at every street corner by drunk driving, etc... Etc, etc.

This government's related actions now focuss on medical weed in the face of the public when in fact those bigots never even got to explain their Bennett heritage.

...Government needs to work on that whole problem, before revamping everything else.

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In Harper's country it may be OKay for suffering/poor people to pay 10 $/g in western Canada where the petroleum industry appears to have brought properity. Here in Quebec, i wonder...

I mean, 10 $/g may be fine when dealing with an illicit redistributor but what kind of profit is this once Medical Cannabis has been turn into a prosperous legal industry for conservative friends? After all it should be profitable even at 3 $/g around here, i believe... We've got electricity and water, it would have been reasonable to put that to good use - but then i'd be day-dreaming!

M'yeah, a diversion of sorts, but who would say no to a 1.3 billion dollars market?!!

...

So, i suppose Harper felt he may not remain in power past the next elections after all, maybe he decided he's much better get ready than sorry before miniPET strikes. Still, like you i believe that's just another opportunity in the oily sands style, no much more...

It was the first two sentences that made bile froth up in the back of my throat while basically giving me reason to essentially disregard the balance of the reported story:

"The Conservative government is launching a $1.3-billion free market in medical marijuana on Tuesday, eventually providing an expected 450,000 Canadians with quality weed."

The Conservatives ??!! You've got to be fucking kidding me ! Their only reason for joining the party is A) that they have no choice, the people have spoken & B) $$$$ thru taxing a producing facility of a plant, end of story!

450,000 Canadians ? Your kidding right ? It will be years before the medical association will allow their BP pushers to 'prescribe' MJ for use beyond the terminal.

Quality weed ??!! HaHaHaHa.... since when is a product that's been irradiated, chem'd, and ground up whole plant (ala Prairies methods), ever been considered 'quality', let alone worthwhile for the purpose of those needing it.

"Health Canada is phasing out an older system on Monday that mostly relied on small-scale, homegrown medical marijuana of varying quality, often diverted illegally to the black market."

Homegrown medical marijuana of 'varying quality' ?? Ya right..... those who are licensed (or were), to grow for themselves ARE the best judgement source for quality and strain choice that has taken them years to master for their needs.

'Often' diverted illegally to the black market ?? Assholes are living in a false belief if they really think that the MAJORITY of med growers are offloading to the 'black market' !! The fault of very minute number of abusing licensees are a creation of the poor managing skills by those who provided the license while unable to verify nor enforce the regulation under which it was granted !

The black market is run by the black market PERIOD ! When these stunned cunts finally figure out that they can't pull the wool over the eyes of those with half a brain, and that the majority of voters and tax payers are NOT the sheeple of yesteryear, it is THEN that will pull the profit interest away from organized crime and wannabe hoods by ending the useless war on drugs with regards to tomorrows next tax cow known as cannabis ! (you know, like booze).

Either way.... although my ailments are not terminal, I do qualify... and I'm sooooooo fucking glad (in my case) that it was difficult to get signed into the program and that I'm NOT ON THE LIST for easy pickings when the shit hits the fan !!

Being a tax paying, contributing member of society over one shoulder, and a criminal over the other will continue to be in MY future I guess.... so be it.... it just means that 'nothing has really changed' or about to change in the end, right? Life goes on !

Indeed, given no better options i'll pick miniPET without a 2nd thought, though still remembering the last few Liberal incidents since Jean Chrétien (even Justin's father before that!), euh... Trudeau's brief mediatic event on cannabis wasn't helping OUR cause in an anti-cannabic society built on a failed conservative heritage (would that young ambitious man genuinely understand what i mean or must he seek advice from his wife?) - not to mention polititians aren't getting much love around here already.

Sure enough i didn't appreciate his petition and the timing proved to be mediocre as a bonus - in fact i've rarely seen such quick momentum decay!

...6 months mandatory minimum if someone grows 6 or more plants? Way to ruin a life.

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Hummm... Please pardon me for not providing a reference but i thought private-farming just won't be possible even with a permit anymore (no minimum session). This nation's children get no favour from Government and TV who like to repeat that cannabis acts as a "turnstile drug" while in fact people will be tempted to try Salvia Divinorum and what not, rendering real dangerous substances more attractive eventually. So some things don't seem to improve despite trying hard...

Absolute-Zero risk is all the anti-cannabic warriors will settle for so lets simply give them the paradise they want by transforming this miserable society into an idylic heaven where no harm is done!... Only i'd find it a bit strange to expect of stoners some degree of perfection which eluded politicians and lawers for decades, euh... Maybe it's nothing but a twited tactic: e.g. ask for something impossible while pretending to act in good faith. That must be one reason why people get killed in other countries: that ain't been progressing fast enough, go figure! Euh... M'well i'm a "stoner" (Qc.: un "droÿé") who probably wouldn't make any sense when judged by Canadian justice and its people.

In Canada we love to break the toys of others (Harper style) so it's all good as long as society has no issue(s) with alcohol, tobacco and more.

Just wait until the future perspectives in psychological science reveals that there is a coherent consciousness amongst plant life.... Now won't THAT be a trip for all (ourselves included), us 'murderers' !

Just wait until the future perspectives in psychological science reveals that there is a coherent consciousness amongst plant life.... Now won't THAT be a trip for all (ourselves included), us 'murderers' !

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And the angel of the lord came unto me
snatching me up from my place of slumber.
And took me on high and higher still
until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself.
And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own midwest.
And as we descended cries of impending doom rose from the soil.
One thousand nay a million voices full of fear.
And terror possessed me then.
And I begged "Angel of the Lord what are these tortured screams?"
And the angel said unto me,
"These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots!
You see, Reverend Maynard,
tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust."
And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat
like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared,
"Hear me now, I have seen the light!
They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul!
Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!"
Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you Jesus.
Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on........
This is necessary.
It was daylight when you woke up in your ditch.
You looked up at your sky then.
That made blue be your color. You had your knife there with you too.
When you stood up there was goo all over your clothes.
Your hands were sticky.
You wiped them on your grass, so now your color was green.
Oh Lord, why did everything always have to keep changing like this.
You were already getting nervous again.
Your head hurt and it rang when you stood up.
Your head was almost empty.
It always hurt you when you woke up like this.
You crawled up out of your ditch onto your gravel road and began to walk,
waiting for the rest of your mind to come back to you.
You can see the car parked far down the road and you walked toward it.
"If God is our Father," you thought, "then Satan must be our cousin."
Why didn't anyone else understand these important things?
You got to your car and tried all the doors.
They were locked. It was a red car and it was new.
There was an expensive leather camera case laying on the seat.
Out across your field, you could see two tiny people walking by your woods.
You began to walk towards them.
Now red was your color and, of course,
those little people out there were yours too.

Now Canadian citizens might come to wonder what "public message" it was when Baltej Singh Dhillon became the very 1st turbaned sikh in RCMP police, under a conservative government... It's OKay to put religion forward, on top of any other priority, but despite this guy's valid permit it appears a change of wearing will be necessary each time he needs his evil medication...

One simple explanation: plain spin-doctor propaganda plagues elites in a country where rules are bent whenever ideologically convenient. Welcome to Harper's world!!

OTTAWA, September 4, 2002 - The Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs today released its final report on cannabis. In an exhaustive and comprehensive two-year study of public policy related to marijuana, the Special Committee found that the drug should be legalized. The 600 plus page Senate report is a result of rigorous research, analysis and extensive public hearings in Ottawa and communities throughout Canada with experts and citizens.

“Scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol and should be treated not as a criminal issue but as a social and public health issue”, said Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, Chair of the Special Committee, in a news conference today in Ottawa. “Indeed, domestic and international experts and Canadians from every walk of life told us loud and clear that we should not be imposing criminal records on users or unduly prohibiting personal use of cannabis. At the same time, make no mistake, we are not endorsing cannabis use for recreational consumption. Whether or not an individual uses marijuana should be a personal choice that is not subject to criminal penalties. But we have come to the conclusion that, as a drug, it should be regulated by the State much as we do for wine and beer, hence our preference for legalization over decriminalization.

...
​

-=*=-

It's been rejected by conservatives who claim to be ethical since 2003, but lets just point out that after the Liberals before them it wasn't too hard to gain power in Ottawa, after all!... Now it appears the clock is ticking so i guess it must feel like Chinese water-drop torture to Harper when his elite friends make such headlines: i mean, Toronto's mayor put plenty of icing on Harper's cake already (the panda episodes are memorable), and now this RCMP gesture adds a final touch i would say!

That leaves quite some striking impression of dissymetry, likely to shead new light on a peculiar determination to avoid contact with reality.

The way i understand it all this only means that starting next April 1st (the joke is on us i guess!) cannabis cultivation becomes a criminal offense for all those who din't obtain their license. Previously a juge still had some freedom of interpretation for growing 5 plants or less but Harper's conservatives removed this loop-hole, pretending it's going to benefit medical patients as approved producers will offer them some better medication somehow...

If there's anything "FREE" about it i'd point out it must be the money grab made possible by a new niche market created without a trace of fairness in mind. As for taxes, i'm curious to know what legit (sick/suffering) users would think of it!

I know a few people that are applying for their licenses, and I've heard all sides of the story ... I hate to see personal production be eliminated (you can even brew your own beer and wine at home after all ... and I've heard rumors that distilling your own alcohol ... ie. Moonshine ... might be legalized soon too)

Anyways ... the opening up of private commercial opportunities for production of cannabis is not necessarily a bad thing, through the grapevine I've heard that a hundred or more should be licensed and up and running by April 1st. The primary compassion club I deal with will be referring us over to their primary supplier once they are licensed so not much should change for me.

The problem with removing the personal production (apart from having complete control over your medicine) is that for many the medicine becomes unaffordable ... what right does the government have to tell someone that they now need to start coping with 10-50% of the medication they used to use ... that's insane ... for many people the cost jump will be in the hundreds of percent (100% to 1,000% depending on how much one consumes and produces) This is completely unethical ... then only way this works is if recreational market is opened and subsidizes the medical market or alternately drug plans begin to cover it ... short of that, it violates our constitutional rights.

Unfortunately, we have no absolute Constitutional rights in Canada. This is Article 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
​

Emphasis mine. In other words, the Courts can deny (and have on various occasions) any of the "rights and freedoms" further outlined, never mind that some rights that many would want (such as a right to health care, quite relevant here) are not even included.

What Health Canada has done is a perfect example of why I am opposed to medical marijuana: it's a regulatory trap that doesn't meet the needs of those who must have it and lets the government impose much harsher penalties on anyone who falls outside the narrow artificial boundaries they define. The only solution I accept is complete legalization for all.

Apparently some of those received an envelope clearly labelled "Marijuana" and so far 2 of them claim they were contacted by public bodies other than Health Canada, relatively to their cannabic activity...

...I hate to see personal production be eliminated... ...short of that, it violates our constitutional rights. ... This is completely unethical...

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Sorry about my creative juxtaposition of quotes but to me the law was simply flawed & abusive starting with its origin and hence we may reach an agreement when it comes to the need for symetric treatment comparatively to alcohol, etc.

...the opening up of private commercial opportunities for production of cannabis is not necessarily a bad thing... ...the only way this works is if recreational market is opened and subsidizes the medical market...

There's no problem in giving priority to medical users as far as i'm concerned, it's our legal context where the existance of legit users translates as being tagged criminal for others which i believe to be wrong as this makes vulnerable people hostages of the anti-cannabic clan.

Unfortunately in Harper's universe this is all getting utterly twisted beyond mental sanity.

Well I a patient here with a lisence and this new program sucks ass, I've had a growing permit for 10 years and never went with out meds, now I'm waiting for the gov growers to produce product and as of today I've gone with out cannabis for 6 weeks cause the producer I registered with has no meds in stock, I just changed producers to a dutch on called bedrocan and now I will get my meds straight from holland , amsterdam.